Actress Saira Banu makes a dramatic comeback to films

She had been summarily dismissed as the showpiece behind thespian actor-husband Dilip Kumar's high-profile personality during the last eight years. And just when film buffs and fans had almost relegated her to backstage as the anguished housewife, sobbing over her husband's controversial broken affair, Saira Banu made a dramatic comeback to films last fortnight. And, taking no chances, she was pitted against her own husband, a highly saleable commodity at the box-office, in Ramesh Talwar's Duniya. Going by her past performances, where her appeal was determined by how much she'd reveal of her curvaceous figure, she could well pose a threat to the sati savitri stereotypes of the silver screen.

Candy: Dandy comeback

She created a storm in Bombay's film world, notably in the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, way back in 1977 because of her connection with the then information and broadcasting minister V.C. Shukla. But Candy, rechristened Ritika Singh, has come a long way since then. After leaving the FTII where she was enrolled as a "special student" mainly because of her "official" connections, her film career was nipped in the bud and she veered off from the arc lamps to join her mother in Switzerland leaving an unsavoury scandal behind. Last fortnight she popped back into the limelight, as she began to pick up the threads of her thwarted career in films, while producers pondered on whether or not to dole out contracts to her. Having already done some insignificant roles in a few films, she will now be appearing in the lead role in a film titled Prem Shastri And as for the choice of her roles, Candy cooed: "My body is sacred and precious. I won't bare for any small roles but only if I am the heroine."

Tariq Ali: Mellow polemics

Like wine, firebrand radicals mellow with age. Tariq Ali, the archetypal pulpit revolutionary now greying fashionably at the temples, is no exception and is going to talk less and write more. Ali was in India last fortnight researching his forthcoming book, The Rediscovery of India Which he hopes to bring out by the end of next year. The book, he says, "is by no means going to be 100 per cent politics and culture. But there will be polemics, mostly against Anglophiles in India and Indo-phobes in Britain and Europe." Ali's last series of polemics, subtly titled Can Pakistan Survive?, earned him a place on the Pakistan Government's blacklist. Meanwhile, he brushes the competition aside, saying of that other great non-resident polemicist V.S. Naipaul that "he's not a political critic but a critic of the dung heaps of India. Utterly superficial."

Tee-times for Gaurav Ghai

Anyone would think he couldn't tell a putter from a six-iron but Gaurav Ghai uses both with a wristy elegance that golfers twice his age would envy. They were doing just that at the Delhi Golf Course last fortnight when the wiry 15-year-old got into the finals of the All India Amateur Golf Championship, easily the youngest player to do so. On the great day a hushed crowd in its Sunday best watched the 10th class student and veteran player Alan Singh square off for the deciding 36 holes.

In the event, Singh got the better of his enthusiastic but not so experienced opponent by a respectable number of holes, the match ending on the 27th hole - conveniently next to the clubhouse bar - when Singh sank an easy putt. Said a dejected Ghai afterwards: "My putting wasn't very good this time, not as good as it was on previous days."

But Ghai, who took up his first driver six years ago, has a professional handicap of 5 and placed fifth in the world Junior Championship in Jakarta recently, has no intention of giving up. Golf obviously suits him to a tee.

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